Demdike Stare - Wonderland (Album Review)

A sense of horror has been a crucial aspect of Demdike Stare since the projects inception back in 2009. The name itself explicitly connects the act to a distant English past, one wrought with superstition and a perceived presence of the uncanny. 'Demdike' alludes to a notorious witch trial, taking place under the rule of James 1 - the deeply superstitious author of 'Demonology' - a king who was profoundly fearful of witchcraft, Shakespeare famously writing Macbeth to appease his interest in the topic. The trial culminated with the nine year old Jennet Device condemning her entire family - including her grandmother Demdike - to execution for the practising of this crime.

Given the historical context, the duo's name certainly brings with it a claustrophobic, enveloping fear - the terror of being trapped within the unflinching gaze of a demonic entity. Musically a large chunk of the groups material seamlessly merges with the connotations of their name. A dense air of ghostly unease gathers atop sparing rhythms, while the collage-like artwork will often conjure up a folkloric infatuation with black magic.

Their interests have slightly altered on this latest release, 'Wonderland', as well as on their recent series of 12"s. The duo - comprising of Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker - maintain a sound which seems to exist in a state of monochrome, but here its surrounding mist recedes in favour of fevered and volatile rhythms. As the mist recedes, so does the acts connection to a number of their more weathered references, situating them more firmly with a certain lineage of musical history - specifically the last few decades of British rave music.  

Now, Demdike Stare have always had a strong connection with rave culture, but on 'Wonderland' we find them at their most directly dance focused. With a widespread maniacal grin, the duo barrel through a plethora of styles; techno, grime, hardcore, garage, industrial, jungle; a palpable menace being infused into each of these individual genres - a menace that's gleefully juxtaposed against the project's open playfulness. This menace maintains it's deranged verve throughout, thankfully never tilting over towards the morose or dour.

'Wonderland' is largely defined by it's jagged propulsion, yet during the latter third of the track 'Hardnoise', the beat gives way to unabashedly beautiful melodic tones; their rosy presence momentarily alarming due to the scraping, corrosive textures which characterised the album up to that point. Throughout the project rhythms typically build until inevitable implosion. Take the thrillingly shambling 'Airborne Latency', which forcibly scurries onward, the beat growing more caustic and impaired as it progresses. Clearly flummoxed, the rhythm eventually opts for the exit and withers away, while crackling ambience is left to swell up to the foreground.    

Previously the extensive use of library music within their sample heavy sound led to unavoidable hauntology interpretations, and although their recent output could feasibly be situated alongside Burial - an artist whose sound many describe as being the 'ghost of rave' - I don't really think the link holds much weight. Perhaps fellow Manchester artist Andy Stott would be a better comparison, notably due to the way both projects apply their singularly honed aesthetic to numerous dance styles, whilst doing so stretching and reconfiguring these forms.  

The switch towards the dancefloor in no way banishes the duo's previously mentioned supernatural qualities - malicious sonic spectres still regularly intrude upon the album, lacing these brittle rhythms with layers of vaporous ectoplasm. On the disconcerting 'Sourcer', what sounds like a heavily processed garage vocal takes the role of unholy incantation; whilst during the final moments of 'FullEdge (eMpty-40 Mix)', we're subjected to the retching of - what springs to mind as being - a malevolent spirit trapped inside an answering machine.

Rather than erasing all elements of the uncanny, Demdike Stare appear to have instead resituated them - proving that these components are not dependant upon extensive mood pieces, able to thrive similarly within a frantic rhythmic template. This ability to resurrect the supernatural, specifically within the urbane modern world, has always been one of Demdike Stares most enticing qualities. After all, the cliched idea of the supernatural - throughout literature, film etc. - is commonly/wrongly restricted to the rural, the rustic; whilst urban living is left deprived of the mystery that comes tied to this topic.

It should also be pointed out that the groups talents stretch further than merely creating music, now becoming increasing notorious for their own audacious DS label. This year alone we've seen them release Micachu's 'Taz and May Vids' - an EP which voraciously reshaped it's garage/2-step template - whilst Equiknoxx's 'Bird Sound Power' forged a mind bending collision between dancehall and juke. However, with their own release - 'Wonderland' - Demdike Stare have clearly conceived one of 2016's finest albums; a mangled tour of rave, from newly conceived perspectives, stretching towards the outer-limits of the hardcore-continuum.

Words by Eden Tizard

Twitter: @eden_tizard

Katie Gately (Interview)

The music of Katie Gately thrives in contradiction. The world of sound design and field recordings are known for a weighty seriousness, yet her sound cackles with a hilarious and absurdist humour. Experimental is synonymous with difficulty, but again Gately deviates from typical connotations, making her wildly experimental music as fun and instantaneous as it is challenging. Perhaps she has best described the coalition of seemingly incompatible elements herself when saying she wishes to make her songs "49% obnoxious and 51% fun"

Her new album "Color" will be available on Tri Angle Records October 14
Here's an old interview with Katie Gately:



Were you inspired to pursue vocal experimentation by contemporary artists like Holly Herndon or was it something you've been interested in to a while?

KG: I Was awestruck by Bjork's Medulla becuase it was so dynamic and based all on the human voice. I've kept that with me for the past decade on repeat. Inspiration for my own recording was also bolstered by the software Vst Melodyne, which can transform the human voice in supreme ways, less robotic than autotune.

Do you ever wish that you'd be able to perform your music or is composition ultimately the most important aspect?

KG: Composition is is my primary interest. If time and resources were not an issue, performance would certainly be a bigger priority!

On Pipes you restricted yourself by only allowing your voice in the composition. Did you find the process of limiting yourself helpful?

Yes profoundly helpful. I often will give myself 20 minutes and 10 samples and see what I can do in that window of time. The more options I have, the less I tend to care about what I'm making. It's almost as if the cramped space of limitation triggers more tension and emotion becaue I am trapped and have to build a way out with pre-determined tools.

Despite the more experimental elements in your music it is very melodically driven. Do you consider yourself a songwriter?

I consider myself more of a producer and vocalist than songwriter. Perhaps because I associate the word 'songwriting' more with traditional instrumentation and the folk tradition, but I am in love with melody and I'm always exploring it.

For a 15 minute song I thought Pivot was remarkably catchy. Do you think employing these melodic elements helps people to adjust to the stranger elements of your music?

Yes, for sure. I try to make things with my own strengths and weaknesses in mind. I find I have both a high pain tolerance yet also short attention span. So I like abrasiveness but not in long extended spurts, and I love catchy music but primarily if there is some darker element present.

Both Pipes and Pivot extend well beyond the 10 minute mark. What are the benefits as an artist of working on longer pieces?

I'm not sure ther are any benefits! It's difficult to succeed aesthetically and takes tons of time. Royalty wise its actually considers stupid. However it feels tremendous to try for. Long tacks can easily fall apart at any moment - I love that vulnerability. You get a more intimate peak into a person's mind.

How early in your life were you exposed to electronic music?

I had only really heard top 40 and classical until I was 18, but I read an interview with Thom Yorke around the time he was going on and on about Autechre and Aphex Twin, so I started listening to anything I could get my hands on.

Arca - Entrañas (Mixtape Review)

"Its ok to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading, but secretly you'd love to know what it's like. Wouldn't you?"          

Gender and sexual identity has always been a crucial idea within the music of Arca. This sampled monologue from Charlotte Gainsbourg is the most explicitly it has been addressed. Amidst a relentlessly hostile environment, full of sudden ruptures and turbulence, this address is made clear and militantly upfront. Alejandro Ghersi's music under the moniker of Arca rarely allows for such an unambiguous message, it is widely known for wrestling with the complexity and fluidity of identity, offering few - if any - simplistic answers.

Arca, Lotic and Elysia Crampton are all part of a burgeoning scene, one which operates through a shared desire to make what is wrongly perceived as objective far more blurred. This stretches beyond the realms of topics explored in interviews, but to the very structure of the music itself. Nothing is fixed or solid within the releases by these artists. Any refernece is there to be mangled and contorted.

Entrañas is the most punishing and industrial of his discography, a weird contradicting mix of murky and epic, sounding like its writhing around in the mud with sudden flashes of... I don't think elegance is the right word, but something along those lines. A Cocteau Twins sample is unexpectedly used, Liz Frazer's voice - not the slightest bit ruined by the sea of boorish indie boys obsessively fawning over it - is imbeded amongst Arca's set of typical - or atypical - sounds. One trait being the strange warped note which has been compared to a digital harpsichord. In fact its fitting that the release features a collaboration with Mica Levi, as the sound of both artists are like a bent out of shape alien string section.

This exploration of sounds which are undeniably, well... let's just say on the grating end of the spectrum, could be mispercieved as shallow shock tactics. It's true that the mixtape has the capacity to make even the most avid Throbbing Gristle fan feel uneasy, but it does so in a genuinely cathartic manner (I know describing punishing music as cathartic is an overused idea, but it's one which is definitely applicable to this project)

If Helm's Olympic Mess is like an industrial music of the post-club climate, then Arca's may be percieved by some as the industrial of the post-human. I think claims which have been made relating to Arca's percieved inhuman sound are a tad fatalistic and reactionary, after all I've always thought Arca makes a mockery of the idea that technology makes us more distant. He uses the digital world to create a far more complicated and multi facated depiction of identity and emotion.

The mixtape culminates with the only identifiable song 'Sin Rumbo'. The lethargic, ponderous pace is interrupted with jerks of both natural and synthetic sounds, ending with the sample of fireworks, which remarkably comes across as melancholic rather than joyous. The track features what I believe are Arca's own vocals, resulting in probably the closest we'll ever see to a ballad. After finishing the release i'm reminded of Arca's continuous ability to bypass boundaries, bravely removing expected limitations on both sounds and ideas.

Laurel Halo - Quarantine (Album Review)

It's now been several years since the release of Laurel Halo's beguiling and misunderstood masterwork 'Quarantine'. Initially online commentators engaged in fearsome debates surrounding the most controversial aspect of the release, her vocals. Either seen as fearlessly upfront or unbearably flat, the vocal delivery throughout made no attempt to win over non believers. Unlike many underground releases, which hide traditionally not pristine vocals through pillow like layers of washy reverb, the vocals here cut straight through the mix.

I don't like to call the sexist card lightly, but there does seem to be an immense amount of leeway given to less than adequate male singers, as oppose to female. "Endearingly imperfect", or phrases of that sort, are commonly attached to male singers whose inability is somehow seen as more characterful than that of female vocalists. Perhaps the age old necessity for women to be only pretty, perfect and restrained persists. Halo makes no attempt to maintain her composure throughout this release, her vocals will often deliberately strain to reach notes, or stay flat to such an extent that they create a sort of monotonous drone.

To judge 'Quarantine' only on the vocal performance is to thoroughly miss the point. The album doesn't craft, so much as violently forge an alien landscape. Halo achieves a far more carnal and feral form of futurism, attacking the body as much as the musical form. When listening to 'Quarantine' you are constantly aware that it's her own beast, which is bizarre considering the albums inclusion of analogue synthesizers, something you might expect to create a nostalgic warmth or glow. However in this environment they perform no such function. The album is difficult to lump into any particular scene. Some link it to the hauntology or hypnagogic movement, due to it's use of analogue synths. However the album doesn't so much sound like the nostalgia for a lost future, more an ambiguous yet prescient prediction of a future yet to arrive.

Halo has said that "A lot of the tracks have this pressure-tank or recycled-air feeling to them-- when you're on an airplane and constantly breathing in the exhaust of your neighbours." Thematically there is a claustrophobic feeling persistent throughout. Simultaneously being suffocated, as well as isolated. The quote from Halo reveals a certain kind of paranoia of your surroundings. Many spend their entire day within the confines of minute office cubicles, breathing in copious amounts of artificial air. This record almost comes across as a soundtrack to this experience.

The song 'Carcass' musically embodies this feeling of walls slowly closing in, a hysteria caused not by any drastic or traumatic situation, just the sensation of being confined against your will in a synthetic environment. 'MK Ultra' on the other hand is named after a CIA experiment on human subjects. In an attempt to create the ideal soldier, they would force patients to take psychedelic drugs, as well as experiment with hypnosis, sexual abuse and sensory deprivation. This all adds to the ongoing feeling present on the record of either being mentally or physically trapped.

To characterise the themes as being devoid of the tactile, personal and human, would be an inaccuracy. Laurel Halo has said that "to me the bleak and raw was key, and I think people that have been heartbroken maybe get the record more." This adds another dimension to the album, but continues the idea of deprivation. However this time it is the feeling of being deprived from someone else, through rejection, betrayal or loss. The final track 'Light + Space', is an example of this other subject, which inhabits the record. The song is more sparse than a great deal of other tracks on the album, more hopeful and personal in tone also. It allows for a far more obviously beautiful vocal melody to play out over a weightless and directionless sonic surface.

The electronic musician-perhaps more than any other-is seen as a sonic architect. Someone who creates sound sculptures that draw little upon the natural noises which occur within our day to day environment. It's tempting to see Laurel Halo as an artists that embodies this idea. After all I used the phrase beguiling at the start of this review, and I really should stress this point. It's unlikely you'll find another album just like 'Quarantine'. Music should be a strange and unfamiliar experience. The dense theory surrounding much contemporary underground electronica, somewhat takes away from the raw pleasure of being plunged into rapid currents of jarring and unfamiliar sound.

What Laurel Halo has crafted is her own distinct form of digital psychedelia. This has been achieved through both her production skills and the use of her unedited voice. It's strange that the instrument responsible for some of most innovative sounds of the past decade is also the most primitive. What's more rudimentary than the human voice? The instrument appears to have a limitless capacity for generating as yet unheard of sounds. After all for thousands of years we have used it for all manner of purposes, from Gregorian chant and Mongolian throat singing, all the way through to rhythmic beat boxing.  A fresh wave of producers (including Laurel Halo, Holly Herndon and Katie Gately) have continued this trend by utilising and warping their voices as a thrilling new method for generating new sounds.

How this record will be looked back on in 20 years time is unclear. Sadly the likelihood is that it shall remain forever marginalised. Never appreciated to the extent it should be. The very vocals which condemn this release to eternal obscurity, are also the key driving force behind it's distinct vision. For now at least it can be seen as a startling reflection of a digital 21st century experience. It may not always be the most inviting record, but stands true to the obvious statement (but still one which needs repeating) that there are always exciting new avenues to explore within music. We don't have to listen to the bitter among us who proclaim musical creativity peaked decades ago. As Laurel Halo sings "Forward motion is the only answer".

Twitter - @eden_tizard